Songwriter Quotes - page 2

Being a good songwriter means paying attention and sticking your hand out the window to catch the song on the way to someone else's house! (Nanci Griffith)

The hack songwriter will write the absolute truth every single word, whether it makes a great song or not.

Paul Westerberg

Being a songwriter does not rely on an audience or other band members or a camera. I can just sit in a room and write songs.

Rick Springfield

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.

Robert Wyatt

A young songwriter shouldn't think he or she doesn't stand a chance because someone has big corporate people behind him. Never look at it like that.

Ronald Isley

L.A.'s cool; I had a run with it to where it just pretty much wore me out. I love the weather and I have great friends there, great family, but I really cannot take a lot of the culture. Like Nashville, where everybody's a songwriter, everybody out there is an actor.

Shooter Jennings

Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.

Stephen Malkmus

I think if you're a good songwriter, that's what you are first - not a star or celebrity.

Tom Cochrane

As a songwriter, if you can touch people and make them feel a little less alone in the world, then you've done your job.

Tom Cochrane

I didn't know if it would be a success-ful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter.

Bruce Springsteen

I can tell you I wrote every single word in this [her first children's] book -- in English and Spanish. I've been writing poetry and stories since I was a kid. And I am a songwriter. But you have limitations when you are a songwriter . . . . It was really a luxury to have 31 pages to expound upon. (Gloria Estefan)

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

Tom Waits

The Greatest songwriter on the planet.

Rufus Wainwright

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.

Billy Joel

I love to rock 'n roll. But my finest suit, of all the things I do, is as a songwriter.

Dan Fogelberg

You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York... three nights.

Elvis Costello

It was so frightening at the time to be seventeen and have heart monitors hooked up to you. That was the moment the songwriter in me was born. I discovered a whole other side of me. I came home that night and started writing lyrics. I discovered it all at once: It was like opening up a lockbox, and inside was a depth that I didn't even know I had as a person, or a writer - incredible creativity and vision and neurosis, complete neurosis. They all go together in a package.

John Mayer

I've always said that Chris was the greatest songwriter to ever come out of Seattle. Jimi Hendrix could play the guitar like crazy, but Chris had the song-writing chops that we all sort of hoped to get to at different points in our songwriting careers. He had a way he could wrap a melody around odd time signatures and weird parts and make them catchy. He was a beautiful wordsmith. If you look at his lyrics, he obviously was processing his pain and depression, and all of those things. I think that's part of what people, myself included, responded to when he was singing. With the songwriting he had that voice, there's not too many people that have that many options with their voice. He could do a lot of different things with it, and have a lot of different characters in that voice. I feel so lucky that I got to be in a project with him, got to hang out with him, and just sort of witness his greatness.

Chris Cornell

Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time.

Van Morrison

I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart.

Diana Ross

I think people appreciate a songwriter who shows different sides. The whole angst thing is cool, but if that's all you've got, it's just boring. Everything I write, whether it's happy or sad, has a sense of humor to it. (Katy Perry)

I decided a handful of years ago that I just want to write songs that you can understand as soon as you put the record on. There's no need to veil what's happening in the song the way I used to. My goal as a songwriter now is to simply write some memorable turns of phrase.

Ben Gibbard

Being someone who has been the frontman and the songwriter for a band that has been together since I was 12 years old, you do get to that point where you think: 'If I keep doing this for too long it's going to be all I can do' ... which is why in Silverchair I kept changing.

Daniel Johns

I am one of the biggest Laura Nyro fans. I still listen to that stuff incessantly. Laura Nyro does not belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Songwriter Hall of Fame? Absolutely.

Paul Stanley

I've been a huge fan of Gaga since she first burst on the scene. I just love everything that lady represents. First and foremost, her voice is extraordinary. I love her voice. She's an accomplished musician. She plays piano really well. She's just a great songwriter. And she's a beacon of hope for a lot of people in the world.

Rob Halford

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